ON RECORDMost UP Congressmen want to align with BSP: Birender Singhby Prashant SoodFORMER Haryana Congress chief Birender Singh, who was recently given the responsibility of looking after the party’s Uttar Pradesh affairs by Mrs Sonia Gandhi, has set time-bound targets to tone up the organisation for the Lok Sabha polls.

PROFILEVenkatachaliah’s stature higher than the awardby Harihar SwarupIT was a pleasant surprise for Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah last week when he was decorated with the second highest civilian award — the Padma Vibhushan — and not entrusted with a responsibility like chairing the Constitution Review Commission or heading the National Human Rights Commission.

REFLECTIONSChange is permanent, growth is optionalby Kiran BediWE all have our own ways of ringing in the New Year and saying adieu to the old one. I saw this more closely this year. For no special reason, but perhaps change of personal preferences and inner needs. These changes are subtle and surface when one has to decide clearly which way to go.

DIVERSITIES
— DELHI LETTERBooks that are making their presence feltby Humra QuraishiWITH the book fair getting still nearer, books seem to be making their presence felt (no, I wouldn’t add by the dozen, for then these would be bracketed with a sack full of potatoes and all that toeing veggie and edgy sentiments).

Padmashrees and more to it

Serves me right

KASHMIR
DIARY
First tentative steps on a precarious and rocky pathwayby David DevadasTHE small talk on the sidelines of the national winter sports meet at Gulmarg last week was illuminating. Competitors from Ladakh often griped about the place, saying that the ice rink planned for Leh would be much better. Kashmiris on the other hand would chatter derogatorily—their pitches rising—about the Ladakhis, who are generally talented competitors.

ON RECORD
Most UP Congressmen want to align with BSP: Birender Singhby Prashant Sood

FORMER Haryana Congress chief Birender Singh, who was recently given the responsibility of looking after the party’s Uttar Pradesh affairs by Mrs Sonia Gandhi, has set time-bound targets to tone up the organisation for the Lok Sabha polls. A former MLA and MP with 23 years of legislative experience, he was the returning officer for Uttar Pradesh in the Congress organisational elections in 2000 when Mrs Sonia Gandhi was elected party president defeating Mr Jitendra Prasad. Being the person in charge of the electorally crucial state with the maximum number of 80 seats in the Lok Sabha, Mr Birender Singh (57) may not have the time to contest the polls from his

native Hissar, but he is keen on fighting assembly elections if these are advanced. Soft spoken and calm, he was till recently a member of the Congress Central Election Committee and is now a special invitee to the Congress Working Committee.

Excerpts:

Q: Can the Congress make a dent in Uttar Pradesh during the coming Lok Sabha elections?

A:
We have drawn a phased action plan. The first phase will last till February 25 in which Congress president Sonia Gandhi will address four rallies besides going on four public interaction tours. These rallies and tours, along with 40 other meetings next month, will be spread all over the state. The state election committee is being reconstituted to get feedback about the party candidates from all the Lok Sabha constituencies. The party will now have zonal offices in Gorakhpur, Ghaziabad, Varanasi and Lucknow which will lead to better coordination besides helping candidates to get the election material quickly. Campaign committees have been set up in all the parliamentary constituencies.

Q: Will you reconstitute the state PCC?

A: Having assumed charge of the state recently, I need some more time to decide about any top-level changes. Changes will be made in the defunct District Congress Committees.

Q: Has the party decided to align with the Bahujan Samaj Party?

A: We are talking to all like-minded parties. The majority of the party workers in UP favour a tie-up with the Bahujan Samaj Party though a section feels that the Congress should go with the Samajwadi Party. Talks on alliances are taking place at the highest level and Mrs Sonia Gandhi has held discussions with BSP chief Mayawati. Though we want an alliance, the party is preparing for all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in the state. The feedback I got from state leaders suggests that the party is in a winning position in 35 Lok Sabha constituencies.

Q: The Samajwadi Party has said it will contest the Lok Sabha polls on its own.

A: We would like to consolidate all the secular forces. The statements from the Samajwadi Party could be political tactics. We consider SP non-communal. Nothing is ruled out at present. Issues like a common minimum programme would also be discussed before reaching any pre-poll alliance.

A: It is their decision. The party workers in Uttar Pradesh want them to actively participate in politics and campaign extensively in the coming polls.

Q: UP Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav said recently that the contest in the state is mainly between his party and the BJP. What are your comments?

A: The contests in the state will be multi-cornered unless all secular forces come together. None of the major parties has a overwhelming vote share with their percentages varying between 20 and 30 per cent. The people will reject any secular party which is seen to be helping communal forces.

Q: Does the party regret having made overtures to former UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh?

A: The Shimla conclave of the Congress had decided to consolidate the secular forces and the initiative was taken by the Congress to contact such parties. Mr Kalyan Singh had contested the last polls against the BJP and had been talking about defeating it. The Congress cannot be responsible for changing the stance of a leader. It is the voters who will decide.

Q: In Haryana, the Congress seems a divided house.

A: Given the record of the Chautala government, the Indian National Lok Dal will receive a drubbing in the parliamentary polls. The BJP will also suffer. The Congress will do well in the assembly polls even if these are advanced. When people have made up their mind for a change, other factors become redundant.

Q: What do you think about the BJP’s “feel good” factor and a magazine poll predicting a comfortable NDA win in the upcoming general election?

A: There is no feel good factor as evidenced by the disillusionment among the youth of the country. The farmers and the poor are going through tough times. As far as the surveys are concerned, I want to ask why they went completely awry in the past as evidenced in the recent assembly
elections.

When dowry becomes a source of harassment for grooms
by Anupriya Sethi

RAJEEV (name changed) was someone who would easily pass off as the simple boy living next door with a decent countenance and a down-to-earth living style. A year after his marriage he woke up to a nightmare when one morning he found himself having to choose between either paying an adequate compensation to his wife Rachna (name changed) or facing police arrest. Reason: he had been charged with demanding dowry from his wife who had filed a complaint of dowry harassment with the police. But what was both noteworthy and interesting, however, was that not once did Rachna refer to her allegation of dowry harassment when her case came up for counselling at the Woman and Child Support (W&CS) Unit. Neither did she even complain of or allege any form of physical abuse at the hands of her husband. Instead, it turned out that she was having adjustment problems with her mother-in-law and so wanted a divorce with handsome monetary “compensation”. Just how keen she was on obtaining `compensation’ became evident when she declined the option to move out of her in-law’s house and live separately with her husband. Rather, she remained insistent on a divorce while seeking an attractive alimony.

This case typifies several complaints that we often receive at the W&CS Unit wherein young married women conveniently allege dowry harassment in the incidence of marital disputes that otherwise range from adjustment problems with the in-laws to personality clashes with the husband. The language of almost all the complaints received at the Unit is quite standard and reads similar — the girl alleges physical and mental torture, usually by the husband and in-laws, for want of dowry. Most of these complaints appear to have been drafted by lawyers with similar expressions, terminologies and approach. It has been observed that it is only in very few cases that a married woman has argued demand for dowry to be a central or the actual cause of alleged harassment.

The Dowry Prohibition Act 1861 was enacted primarily to eradicate the evil of dowry which, though started under the charade of Istri Dhan, has over the years become a source of abuse by the in-laws and subsequent harassment for women. In recent years, the Act has often been criticised for the manner in which married women have misused it. There has been considerable debate whether the Act indeed is beneficial to women or whether it serves more as a tool to harass men. But, perhaps, what remains central to this issue is to understand the reasons why many women have no choice but to resort to the (mis)use of the Dowry Act.

The fact that there are not many laws in favour of women that can be implemented in an effective and simplified manner is best illustrated by the case of Meenakshi and Nitin (names changed). The couple, belonging to the upper middle class, had been married for seven years and had a six-year-old daughter. Meenakshi filed a complaint with the police after she felt that she could no longer suffer domestic violence, which had been a regular feature in her marriage. So much so that on many occasions she had to take medical aid. Nitin apparently suffered from a personality disorder and would turn aggressive even at the slightest provocation. Due to a severely unhealthy environment of rampant domestic violence, even their six-year-old daughter had begun to suffer symptoms of depression. Her complaint was one of the very few received at the Unit wherein she mentioned the facts as they were without resorting to alleging dowry harassment. But since in our society domestic violence is considered to be more of a norm than an aberration and is not recognised as grave an offence as dowry harassment, she felt no choice but to reconcile after some reassurances were given by her husband.

Many women seeking to improve the conduct of their husbands approach the Unit with allegations of dowry demand. The idea is to coerce the husband to either change his attitude or face the consequences of a dowry demand case registered against him. It was quite surprising to come across the case of a doctor husband whose wife had filed a complaint with the Woman and Child Support Unit alleging dowry harassment. During counselling, she conceded that she was in reality annoyed with her husband’s drinking habits and wanted to compel him to change or else face arrest for dowry harassment.

Not only this. Interestingly, in cases where a wife wants a divorce and the husband does not, some women use the threat of the Dowry Act to pressurise them to agree for a mutual divorce. In the case of Suman and Rampal, who belonged to the lower middle class and had a six-year-old daughter, Suman sought to opt out of her marriage. Rampal had, however, declined to accept a divorce even though he accused his wife of having an extra-marital affair. Rampal had, in fact, invested a considerable sum in a beauty parlour that he had helped set up for his wife. Suman, however, insisted on opting out of the marriage without giving a convincing reason. But when she found that Rampal was refusing to give in, Suman demanded that a case under the Dowry Act be registered against him even though she had not once even mentioned the word “dowry” in all the counselling session.

The main observation that emerges from such cases is that since the laws against dowry demand are very stringent and not very difficult to prove, most women consider it the easiest way to get back at their spouses. Moreover, many women are relatively unaware of the other “favourable” laws that can help them fight injustice, while others find them too difficult to prove in the court. The debate should not be about whether or not society needs a Dowry Act, but rather about how to ensure its proper usage and appropriate recognition of other crimes against women. There is still need to make more practical and easy-to-implement laws by our parliamentarians so that for several other grave and yet unacknowledged crimes, laws such as the Dowry Act, which are otherwise made for a rational cause, are not
misused.

The writer is a Counsellor at the Family Counselling Centre of the Woman and Child Support Unit, Chandigarh.

IT was a pleasant surprise for Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah last week when he was decorated with the second highest civilian award — the Padma Vibhushan — and not entrusted with a responsibility like chairing the Constitution Review Commission or heading the National Human Rights Commission. As a matter of fact, Justice Venkatachaliah’s stature has grown higher than the award; it should have come to him earlier. Having steered clear of controversial issues as Chairman of the Commission constituted to review the Constitution, Justice Venkatachaliah was leading a rather quiet life, except involvement with a few socio-cultural organisations, in his home town — Bangalore — when government chose to honour him with Padma Vibhushan. The news hardly excited the former Chief Justice of India, now in 74th year of his life.

Justice Venkatachaliah has been a remarkable Judge, one who has set new standards in the higher echelon of judiciary. He has a long and first-hand experience of not only dispensing justice but also dealing with his “ brother judges”. Even during his tenure as the Chief Justice, he had expressed his dismay about the tendency of some of the members of the Bench to “socialise” in circles that might lie beyond judicious discretion. He was more forthcoming when he headed the Constitution Review Commission on the question of indiscipline among men of judiciary and even suggested ways of curbing it. Indian judiciary has produced men of high integrity, learning and ability, but “there have been exceptions, too, and in the recent years more such exceptions are coming to light”.

Justice Venkatachaliah took up the Chairmanship of the Constitution Review Commission rather reluctantly. The Commission kicked up controversy since its inception and drew criticism from both the political parties as well as civil society. It was contended that it lacked legitimacy because it neither had Parliament’s sanction nor political consensus. Political parties attributed “ulterior motive” to the setting up of the Commission.

Justice Venkatachaliah remained above controversy even as the Commission drew flak and steadfastly maintained that the task of the Commission was not to rewrite the Constitution but to review its working. He maintained his stand in the report, too, that the Commission intended only an academic exercise to suggest amendments to the Constitution and certain legal and executive measures to strengthen constitutional provisions. It made no claims to legitimacy and left to Parliament and the states to decide which of its 249 recommendations needed to be implemented.

The former Chef Justice showed wisdom in skirting the issue of eligibility of non-Indian-born citizens to hold high office. The proposal, initiated by the former Lok Sabha Speaker and a member of the Commission, P.A. Sangma, secured support of five members of the Commission. Justice Venkatachaliah did not exercise his casting vote and thus refrained from taking a stand on the issue. Sangma resigned in protest much before it could complete its work. The suggestion of the Commission that the issue be examined in depth through a political process preceded by a national dialogue was widely welcomed.

Justice Venkatachaliah was Chairman of National Human Rights Commission for three years—from 1996 to 1999—and the second to head the NHRC. He will always be remembered for giving a new direction to human rights. He suggested that human rights should be the core of any development programme in order to achieve balanced development.

When Babri Masjid was demolished over a decade ago, Justice Venkatachaliah was Chief Justice. It was believed at that time that only two persons could have stopped the destruction: Prime Minister P.V. Narsasimha Rao and the-then CJI. Justice Venkatachaliah headed the Supreme Court Bench before whom the matter was pending. It is said in judicial circles that he was naïve enough to accept an undertaking from the then Chief Minister of UP, Kalyan Singh, which he (the CM) never intended to keep. “Brother judges” and highly placed judicial officers say Justice Venkatachaliah’s unassuming behaviour and erudition evoked instant respect. He gave an institutional character to the apex court.

WE all have our own ways of ringing in the New Year and saying adieu to the old one. I saw this more closely this year. For no special reason, but perhaps change of personal preferences and inner needs. These changes are subtle and surface when one has to decide clearly which way to go.

My New Year was in New York. Staying in Manhattan, I had a choice of being a part of a million at the Times Square. Instead, my need was different. It was to be in a spiritual place, just three-hour drive from where I was. It is the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy.

Sri Swami Rama, a spiritual sage from the Himalayas, set up this institute (with many branches in the US) of transformational learning in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. The institute has developed a holistic therapy programme, a graduate school offering a master’s degree and a Ph.D in yoga psychology and philosophy, and research and training programs in yoga science.

I was introduced to the learned master through his book, Living with the Himalayan Masters, and later through his biography, The Eleventh Hour, written by Swami Rama’s illustrious disciple Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, a Sanskrit scholar and teacher with not only two Ph.Ds but also innumerable books to his credit. Panditji is also the current spiritual head of the institute.

I was at the same institute to begin my year. It was also to be an expression of gratitude for the year gone by. What I saw at the institute was something very heartening. The place was brimming with foreigners and a few Indians. They had come for similar reasons, leaving behind the Times Square, like me. We all sang bhajan with purity and simplicity. This was a pure confluence of the East and West: an American disciple of Sri Swami Rama led the spiritual chorus.

I would be selfish if I were not to share with my readers the treasure I received from the institute. It’s quite possible that some, through the reading of this, may well receive an extended New Year’s gift. Here is it for all of us to keep:

We of the West pride ourselves in being “doers” and our lives are often frittered away in a senseless progression of projects. We are builders and innovators without equal; but we are also ridden with an unparalleled degree of anxiety and tension. As one of our poets says: “Why build these cities glorious if man unbuilded goes.” Unless we learn to relax, to let go, to free the mind from its continuous concentration on things at the circumference of life, there is little hope for true enlightenment.

The paramount problem before human life is to be free from all misery and pain. The sensuous pleasures and the voluptuousness of life are the cause of suffering only so long as we are addicted to them as slaves. The only thing required is a change in our attitude. And this change requires practice.

Outside a church, I read a saying: “Change is permanent. Growth is optional.”

Let this be with you as the yearlong pearls of thoughts to be worn and not tucked away in a locker of superficial information. Let these be of the kind that, the more one wears these, the more these glow, and the more we lend these to others, the more these remain with you.

WITH the book fair getting still nearer, books seem to be making their presence felt (no, I wouldn’t add by the dozen, for then these would be bracketed with a sack full of potatoes and all that toeing veggie and edgy sentiments). This week I’ve received German writer (saddled with an Indian husband) Roswitha Joshi’s collection of short stories On The Rocks and Other Stories (UBS), Mukul Dube’s The Path of the Parivar (Three Essays Collective), Mohinder Singh’s The Sikh Wedding (UBS) and Kusum Ansal’s The Widow of Vrindavan (HarperCollins).

Books published a little earlier are also making their presence felt. One, of course, is former journalist Arvind Bhandari’s memoirs Caterpillar In The Salad (Independent). I have been keen to write about this book in the backdrop of the fact that Bhandari comes across as outspoken and also he has an interesting past—his father, D.P. Bhandari, was in the ICS, who had to quit service whilst posted as DC Multan because he happened to be the cousin of Hans Raj Vohra, whose close proximity to Bhagat Singh got known to the British (that’s a different matter altogether that he’d turned approver when Bhagat Singh was convicted).

Also stands out the fact that Arvind Bhandari has been posted as a journalist at crucial junctures in Sikkim and in Jammu and Kashmir and, above all, he is one of those who talks rather too candidly about his divorce, with this footnote to kick your imagination: “I think it was largely my fault in the marriage ending in a divorce.” The rest you readers ought to read yourself. Another book which has just landed (in my arms and then into my hands, though published few months back) is Omar Khalidi’s Khaki and the Ethnic Violence in India (Three Essays) and it does come as surprise that this member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, has delved deep into the ethnic and religious backgrounds of troops and forces. Will keep you updated on more books coming my way...

Padmashrees and more to it

Almost around the time when the Padma awards are announced, there’s this usual backgrounder to it—those grumbling and accusing and moaning sessions. This time, in an unprecedented fashion, there’s been much splashing in sections of the media, of those who were to get the award and then didn’t, and all the frills alongside.

Anyway, for me, it did matter that two persons had been recognised for their talent and much more — one, of course, is cartoonist Sudhir Tailang, whose daily captures reek of sensitivity. His cartoon on the ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s capture turning into so-called American captivity couldn’t have been a better portrayal of the double standards doing the rounds and the helplessness it brings about. On December 15, 2003, the morning after staring at that cartoon for over 30 minutes, I had to tell Tailang that I was finally very impressed and that particular cartoon of his would always be there embedded in my psyche.

The other Padma recipient is the New Delhi-based well-known Mohiniattam dancer, Bharati Shivaji, who is again different from the rest. In between raising her daughter and giving performances of this very special dance form of Kerala, she had been fighting a tough battle for her divorce. I am not too sure whether she’d finally got it, but when I had last met her, she was still fighting for it and yet doing it all so very gracefully. The look in her eyes tells all. Though she is over 50, her is one of the finest faces on the circuit.

Serves me right

Taking extra pains to camouflage those greying locks and look my best (whatever little best one can look in mid years), I landed rather late at Rashtrapati Bhavan for the President’s Republic Day reception and the staff very politely pointed at the set time of arrival. With that delay, there was no entry for me. Embarrassed and off-mood, I turned. Patting my camouflaged hair as though rebuking them with: “All thanks to the colouring sessions that I’d earlier indulged on you!”

I took the road back home and, much to my relief, saw many other latecomers on the road. Anyway, it had been a lesson of a lifetime. That whole evening, I kept driving aimlessly around the city, almost along the strain: “All ready and nowhere to go.” That evening, the city looked different — with a few people of the road and just about fewer
vehicles.

KASHMIR DIARY
First tentative steps on a precarious and rocky pathwayby David Devadas

THE small talk on the sidelines of the national winter sports meet at Gulmarg last week was illuminating. Competitors from Ladakh often griped about the place, saying that the ice rink planned for Leh would be much better. Kashmiris on the other hand would chatter derogatorily—their pitches rising—about the Ladakhis, who are generally talented competitors. Each ethnic group complained about the other in their own language, confident that the other would not follow.

They provided an object lesson in the sorts of prickly issues that will have to be grasped by those who undertake over the coming months to sort out the disputes related to the future of the state. The sprawling state called Jammu and Kashmir is a patchwork of immense ethnic and cultural diversity. It might have been torn in half between India and Pakistan in 1947-48, but the issues are more complex than might be solved by simply drawing a line across the state that both India and Pakistan can agree to. The Ladakhis and the Kashmiris, for instance, have lived side by side, but as was quite obvious, they have not learnt to live together.

The Ladakhis are generally Buddhist and the Kashmiris Muslim, but the fault lines are not just religious. Militant commanders of the early phase of the insurgency that erupted in 1989 speak of the sense of ethnic and cultural alienation they felt when they were based in Muslim Muzaffarabad.

No wonder then, many Kashmiris are sceptical about what might emerge from the process that was begun with the historic meetings last fortnight—between leaders of the Hurriyat Conference and both Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani.

Never before in the past half-century have discussions taken place at this level. It was only when Nehru was Prime Minister that such high-level talks were held between Kashmiri leaders and the Government of India. Sheikh Abdullah and Maulana Azad led the delegations on each side in ’52 and Nehru did some pretty hard talking at a meeting of the National Conference Working Committee that he attended at Chashma-shahi in Srinagar that year. Abdullah and he had some heated, even threatening, exchanges during the course of that meeting.

Abdullah had a commanding presence in at least the Kashmir Valley then, but most Kashmiris are aware of how limited the Hurriyat leaders now are—although the leaders themselves are bubbling with enthusiasm. Clearly elated, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told me after those meetings that: “There is a realisation there too–to our surprise.”

The Government of India seemed to be determined to take whatever steps were required to solve the problem, he said, adding that Mr Advani “did not say no to anything.”

The Hurriyat leaders will now have to address themselves to the sort of problems that were evident at Gulmarg. There can be little doubt that the Hurriyat leaders have a great deal to sort out among themselves before they negotiate.

Their task will be complicated by the fact that not all leaders of Kashmir’s secessionist movement are with them. The faction that Syed Ali Geelani leads includes such figures as Azam Inquilabi and Naeem Khan. Shabir Shah, who was once the icon of the movement, too, is separate.

The Hurriyat leaders will have to agree on positions that are acceptable to the government and yet keep their credibility intact in the face of such prominent opponents.

Also, although the Hurriyat leaders draw encouragement from the positive noises that the government of Pakistan has made regarding their talks, those who control the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and the Lashkar-e-Toiba must surely be fretful.

The challenge for the Pakistan authorities is to rein them sufficiently for this process to move forward through the rest of this year.

All in all then, last fortnight’s talks were a remarkable breakthrough, but are only the first tentative steps on a precarious and rocky
pathway.